


Midnight Dance

by Kolivans (arka_r)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Flower Language, M/M, Sheith Spring Flower Exchange, Space Metaphors, Zero Gravity Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 20:50:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10794519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arka_r/pseuds/Kolivans
Summary: There were stars in Shiro’s eyes, so bright that Keith could make out constellations in them. In that moment, Keith had never felt so in love.Sheith Flower Exchange gift for @xxkoixx01. hope you like it ❤





	Midnight Dance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [@xxkoixx01](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=%40xxkoixx01).



Altean engineering was really great. It surpassed everything that the Galra had been trying to replicate for the last ten thousand years with minimum success— something that Coran and Allura were really proud of. Even so, they had to admit that their ten thousand years old Castleship was an archaic piece of technology.

 

Things broke down pretty often— and while the Castleship was capable of producing parts and self-repairing itself, it still needed manual works to handle everything. Coran, the poor man, barely had any rest with everything falling to pieces. There were always things in need of repair, maintenance, or just general check-up. Even with Pidge and Hunk’s helps, there weren’t just enough manpower to handle  _ everything _ .

 

After too many incidents with the translator failing, the lights flickering on and off at random interval, the artificial gravity switching off all of a sudden, the food goo processor refusing to do its damn job, and Kolivan getting thrown out of the airlock (the Galra was okay, if a bit traumatized), Allura finally decided it would be best for them to moor near a freezing planet orbiting a brown dwarf star while they all were doing the repairs.

 

That was what Keith and Shiro were currently doing, cooped up in a room that Allura said was an unused Entertainment Deck.

 

There was something buggy with the system in the room that  _ somehow _ kept messing with the pressure control system in some random room three decks below, which in turn was messing with the airlock controls— and unless they wanted another case of someone getting thrown out of the airlock, Keith shuddered at the memory of his own experience, they had to fix the damn problem starting from this very room.

 

While Keith and Shiro weren’t a tech whiz like Pidge or an engineering genius like Hunk, at least they knew their stuff. They had to— you couldn’t be the best pilot in the Garrison if piloting was all he knew. He had to have the barest knowledge about the inner workings of the ship.

 

Like, yeah okay, Altean engineering was  _ really _ different than Human engineering, but they all had been learning about Altean language and they could read Altean letters, if the process took forever. That was enough to read the manuals that Coran gave them, at least.

 

The manual, thankfully, was in written format instead of video format. But just like the Weblum video, the pictures in the manual was… kind of corroded with ages. It made Keith wonder how ancient Human cave painting could survive forty thousand years old while Altean advanced recordkeeping could barely survive ten thousand years old.

 

But well.

 

“Okay, so after that, which one I should press again?” Shiro asked, voice strained through the comm. Shiro was hanging upside down close to the panels on the ceiling.

 

Sometimes Keith wondered if Zarkon wiped out the Alteans because of their bad understanding about ergonomic design— upside-down pool, then upside-down panel, what next? —before remembering that the Galra wasn’t all that different about their own design. Just look at their battlecruisers. They didn’t look sustainable  _ at all! _

 

“Keith?”

 

Oh, right.

 

“Uh. You should press the one that looks like a T”, Keith answered, eyes squinting at the manual on the datapad.

 

“Babe, there are at least  _ five _ buttons that look like a T.”

 

Keith could almost hear the eyeroll through the comm. Damn Alteans and their awful,  _ awful  _ design. Pidge could say whatever she wanted about Altean engineering being so elegant and whatever, it didn’t mean jack shit if it was impossible to comprehend.

 

“There should be three dots on it”, Keith said.

 

“That narrows it down to…” Shiro groaned. “Three buttons.”

 

“Urgh! Just press any button!” Keith threw his arms up in the air and looked up to the ceiling where Shiro was— heh,  _ hanging around _ .

 

“You sure?” Shiro asked, voice a little bit uncertain.

 

“Just press it, Shirogane”, Keith said with a deadpan. “I don’t think things can get more broken here.”

 

“Don’t jinx it, Kim”, Shiro chuckled. He was silent for a bit until—

 

— the lights went out on the Recreation Room and suddenly they were floating in zero gravity. Keith automatically flipped on the faceplate on his helmet and let the air filtration system in his suit worked.

 

“Things can’t get more broken, huh?” Shiro said with a chuckle as he jetpacked himself closer to Keith.

 

“Ugh, shut up”, Keith rolled his eyes but reached for Shiro’s hands, clasping their fingers together. Using the momentum from the floor, Keith slowed Shiro’s descent and held him close.

 

Too close, perhaps. It had been awhile since they had intimate moments like this, especially with everything falling apart around them and the big battle looming ahead of them. They always had other things to do; freeing Slav from Beta Traz, harvesting scaultrites from the Weblum, collecting other materials for the giant teludav.

 

Which was… a shame, actually. They might not be able to do it once they went to take out Zarkon for good. They might not come out of it alive.

 

Blinking away the gloomy thought, Keith averted his eyes. He could feel his face heating up and hoped that the slightly tinted face-mask hid his blush from Shiro.

 

“So the artificial gravity switched off, but it’s been on and off for like a  _ week _ . You probably didn’t do anything”, he tried to reassure Shiro, but it came pretty weak. He winced internally.

 

“Emphasis on ‘ _ probably _ ’”, Shiro retorted playfully. “Let’s just let Pidge or Hunk fix it.”

 

Reluctantly, Keith nodded and pulled Shiro to the exit door—

 

— and slammed right into it, when the door didn’t open automatically, like all doors on the Castleship usually did.

 

Keith’s face was okay, both of them were wearing their Paladin armors and had their helmet on, but Keith couldn’t say the same with his pride. Growling, Keith slammed his palm to the panel by the door to open it manually, but it didn’t do anything at all.

 

“Lemme try”, Shiro offered. Keith shifted away to give Shiro access to the panel. But when Shiro placed his hand on it, it didn’t do anything either. 

 

“Great! Now we’re locked in her— oh!” Keith pulled Shiro away from the wall when— well, the wall, the floor, and the ceiling sparkled blue-green and the dark room was soon replaced by an unfamiliar scenery.

 

The whole room changed into a nighttime scenery with lush flower field sprawling underneath. The dark blue sky spread above their head, blanketing the whole wold with darkness. As they floated in the unfamiliar scenery, Keith’s eyes almost bugged out of their sockets when he recognized the Milky Way flowing like sparkly, silvery river. 

 

Keith couldn’t believe his eyes.

 

They were… still back at the Castleship, right?

 

“Uhh…” Shiro looked around, confusion clear on his face even through the helmet. “Did I do this?”

 

Keith blinked, then slowly turned to Shiro.

 

Right. This wasn’t real.

 

“I think this room is like a holodeck or something”, Keith said, as if that wasn’t obvious already. “What I don’t get is why it can replicate, well,  _ everything _ .”

 

It was true. If he squinted his eyes, he could almost point the constellations so accurately it was almost scary. There was no moon, though, but this only made the stars even more vibrant.

 

Shiro put his hand on the chin guard of his helmet, humming. “Let’s just chalk it up as weird Altean technology.”

 

That Keith could agree with.

 

All of the sudden, the artificial gravity turned back online, but both of them were ready. By using their jetpack, they descended slowly to the flower field, between the flowers.

 

It was only in that moment Keith noticed the flowers. They were small and dark purple, a color that Keith slowly associated with the Blade of Marmora. Keith was unfamiliar with flowers except for wildflowers that often grew on the desert, surrounding his desert shack— but these flowers kinda looked like lavenders.

 

“Uh, Keith? Step away from those flowers”, Keith turned and saw Shiro backing away from the bushes. Shiro was in the middle of patting the nonexistent dust off his pristine armor.

 

Keith raised his eyebrows, but slowly complied.

 

“What are those flowers?” he asked, following Shiro’s suit, patting his own armor even though none of the flower got stuck on his armor. Hm. Right, hologram.

 

“Ever heard about monkshood?”

 

“That poisonous plant?” Keith turned to Shiro so quickly. Shiro nodded. “Yikes. I really hope this all just a hologram.”

 

“Let’s just… go over there”, Shiro pulled Keith’s hand without hesitation. Keith let himself be pulled.

 

This felt nice at least, familiar. There had been a lot of time back on Earth, back at the Garrison, when Keith followed Shiro around. At first, it was out of admiration since apparently, the Garrison Golden Boy was the only one who could tolerate Keith’s presence. Then, it sort of evolved into infatuation, then into actual romantic love.

 

At that time, Keith thought Shiro was like a dense space object, like a white supergiant star, and Keith was hopelessly orbiting him. Shiro was still a giant star, even now, a little bit dim from all the horrible things he had to endure but was still burning brightly.

 

And that was when Keith knew he was completely gone to this man— when you started comparing your love to celestial objects, you were like a stray asteroid getting pulled past the event horizon of a black hole.

 

He let out a small squeak that he would deny to his dying breath, when Shiro pulled him close to his chest. Even through the armor, Keith could feel his big, warm hand settling at the dip of his back.

 

“Penny for your thoughts?” Shiro smiled down to him.

 

Keith looked up and, not for the first time, thought how tall Shiro was compared to him. Even more so since his Galran heritage was revealed, he just couldn’t understand why he couldn’t be taller. It was all just so unfair!

 

But well, he couldn’t deny that he loved being in Shiro’s arms.

 

Instead of answering, Keith closed his eyes and rested his head on Shiro’s chestplate, wishing that he could take off his helmet to breathe in Shiro’s familiar scent. Being so close like this, Keith felt like all his problems went away, like he could float forever and forgot about the war.

 

Wait—

 

They  _ were _ floating again. Huh, the artificial gravity had to have glitched off again, but right there and then, Keith found himself didn’t mind. Instead, he hold onto Shiro close as they slowly floated.

 

Grinning, Keith placed one of his hands into Shiro’s bionic hand and his other hand on Shiro’s shoulders. Using the jetpack, Keith began to guide Shiro into a slow dance. Shiro seemed to get the idea, chuckling lightly.

 

This close, Keith could feel tension slowly melting off Shiro’s shoulders.  _ Good _ , he thought.

 

They lost a little bit of control when Shiro turned on his own jetpack. By the time Keith managed to balance them both, their spiraling movements slowed down slightly. Keith laughed when Shiro actually twirled him and did the same to Shiro. At the end of it, Keith dipped Shiro. They were upside down, with the monkshood bushes above their heads and the Milky Way under their feet.

 

There were stars in Shiro’s eyes, so bright that Keith could make out constellations in them. In that moment, Keith had never felt so in  _ love _ , so he did what he thought was reasonable.

 

Their helmets made a light clunk when Keith attempted— and failed— to kiss Shiro. Shiro’s eyes crinkled at the edges as he dissolved into long, ugly snorting. His shoulders shook from holding back his laughter.

 

“Ugh, shut up!” Keith felt his face heating up, looking away— because he felt like if he kept staring at those dark eyes, he would be unable to hold himself back. “We need to get back to work, you doofus. The others are probably wondering what’s taking us so long.”

 

“Oh come on! The others are probably—”

 

Shiro’s words were cut off by the crackles coming from their comms, then Pidge’s voice came through them.

 

“ _ Guys, you done with the Recreation Room? _ ”

 

Keith gave Shiro the look that said ‘ _ I told you so _ ’. Shiro pouted briefly before his face turning serious. “Not yet, sorry. Minor setback.”

 

“ _ Shoot. Uhhh— _ ” Pidge was muttering something that her comm couldn’t quite catch. “ _ I kinda need someone to spacewalk outside the ship to fix the particle barrier, but both Hunk and Kolivan don’t wanna do it and they’re the only ones available aside from you two. _ ”

 

“ _ It’s for a very good reason, okay! _ ” Hunk chimed in through their comm. “ _ And Kolivan agrees with me! Fistbump with me— oh? Oh it’s, you do it like— _ ”

 

Keith rolled his eyes as he listened to Hunk who was undoubtedly teaching the older Galra how to fistbump. “Well, we get locked in here anyways. Unless you can free us or something, we’re stuck.”

 

Well, unless… Keith eyed Shiro, who blinked in confusion. “Unless you want Shiro to slice through the door?”

 

“ _ NO! _ ” That was Coran screeching through the comm. “ _ No slicing through doors! No adding more things to repair! What is wrong with you?! _ ”

 

“Okay, okay! That’s just a suggestion,  _ geez _ ”, Keith wondered if Coran had finally broken down from how many things he needed to repair.

 

Coran was still muttering curses in what Keith assumed as a very crude Altean, too low for the translator to pick up, when Hunk piped in again.

 

“ _ Okay, I’m not as good at hacking as Pidge but Kolivan says he knows a thing or two so we’re gonna rescue you two now. Quick question though— _ ” Hunk paused slightly. “ _ Kolivan wants to ask if you and Shiro are like… courting? Is that the right word— _ ”

 

“Please end me”, Keith groaned, putting his hands on his face— or his faceplate, to be exact. He felt like he was ready to sink into the ground or dissipate into thin air. Since when did those two become buddies?? Keith didn’t understand his friends sometimes.

 

Shiro pulled him into a hug and patted Keith’s back reassuringly as they waited to be rescued.

 

“They’re probably gonna be here soon”, Keith protested weakly, but made no attempt to pull himself away. It was silly, really, but he’d never been so glad for getting locked in some weird holo-room. Especially since he could spend some alone time together with Shiro.

 

“Hmm… so?” Keith could hear something like defiance in Shiro’s voice. “The others already knew about us. Unless you don’t want your new Galra buddies know you’re  _ courting _ me?”

 

Keith looked up slightly and saw a shit-eating smirk on Shiro’s face. He smacked Shiro’s chest lightly before burying his face again in Shiro’s chestplate.

 

“They’re not my buddies”, Keith argued.

 

“Sure, whatever makes you sleep better at night”, Shiro said with a teasing tone. Keith rolled his eyes but didn’t reply.

 

They stayed in that position, floating almost horizontally to the floor, until Hunk and Kolivan managed to open the Recreation Room door. Hunk had a shit-eating grin and Keith  _ swore _ that was a knowing smirk on Kolivan’s face. Shiro simply laughed before pulling Keith out to do whatever Pidge wanted them to do.

 

The next morning, Keith tried to ignore Kolivan and Antok’s curious glances and failed.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://hello-my-stars.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/ArkaTheMan)


End file.
